


Crimes of Opportunity

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: First Time, Multi, Romance, Season 9, season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-13
Updated: 2010-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 23:24:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vala finds her place on the team, and makes common cause with with an unlike ally, Jack, when Daniel is taken by Adria. It turns out that their regard for Daniel is enough to bring them together. But when Daniel returns, will he accept this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crimes of Opportunity

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to sixbeforelunch, synecdochic and paian, whose stories directly inspired this one.

There was a hilarious reunion, although everyone was a little wide-eyed, a little on the twitchy side, at Cameron's place, which used to be Daniel's place, when Daniel and Vala were released from the infirmary after their all-too-real, virtual experience among the followers of the Ori.

The party featured lots of stupid fun party games, and lots of drinking alcohol, and lots of loud music that only Cameron, apparently, was allowed to choose or to play, although he and Teal'c faced off at least once, that Vala saw, in front of the little disc player. Cameron, in the end, yielded to Teal'c, which Vala privately endorsed as the better part of valor, and it turned out Teal'c preferred a very different sort of music than Cameron, though Vala would have been hard put at the time to remember the names of all the various genres. Tau'ri music was distinguished by using electricity to a much greater extent than most of the music in most of the cultures Vala had previously experienced.

But it was, as they say, a great party, and so Vala lingered, even after SG-3 and much of the anthropology staff had left. She stayed on even after Major Coburn, who was here without his team, left, although he offered her a ride twice, and she did approvingly mark him down for "later, possibly." The good major was extremely handsome and so very, very _nice._ She appreciated the offer; she really did. Dr. Lee left, and she very politely turned down a ride back to the mountain from him, as well, and from Sergeant Morris, to whom she gave a quiet kiss goodnight on the stoop, when the rest of her fellow SF's were safely in another truck and down the block to the corner already. But Morris was already her friend.

After all the departures, Vala and Carolyn Lam ended up settled for a time in the living room, talking quietly about the merits and disadvantages of catalogue clothes shopping. Cameron and Teal'c stepped outside to check something that apparently was wrong with Teal'c's truck. The general and Daniel had gone to the kitchen to get more to drink, but had lingered there. Vala could hear them, when she divided her attention. Their voices were a quiet, intense murmur.

Carolyn was drinking ice water; and had been for an hour. Vala had switched to coffee when Daniel did, right after dinner.

At a natural break in the conversation, Vala excused herself and went to the bathroom, and when she came back, Carolyn was saying her own goodbyes in the kitchen. Vala joined the three of them as they drifted to the door, and soon enough, there were hugs all around for Dr. Lam, and the front door opened and closed behind the good doctor. Vala turned and almost ran straight into O'Neill, who was standing very close to her. Too close. Daniel had ducked back into the kitchen, but O'Neill merely stood there, staring her down, blocking her way, without words.

"I'll just be going, then," Vala said, annoyed, but finally getting the sense of it, the undercurrents she'd wondered about, with very little evidence, for a long time. "Teal'c can take me back to the mountain. It should be within range."

"I'll tell Daniel you said good night," O'Neill said, and his eyes were stony, as if they had absorbed something difficult and dark while he was out of sight, there in the kitchen. Which Vala supposed he had.

She wanted to argue, but she didn't. "Thank you," she said. "Give him my best."

That, at least, made O'Neill smile, and that was something to take with her.

She went outside into the soft warm night, and down the stairs, and she arranged herself gracefully against the door of Cameron's car, so as to listen to the end of the mechanical discussion. These engines, she gathered, ran on a liquid explosive fuel, very similar to the technology in the Carnyth system, depending less on electricity and on crystals or fusion not at all. She filed the knowledge away for later, much as she had her overture from Coburn.

Teal'c was regally agreeable to driving her back to the mountain, but to her surprise, Mitchell tucked himself into the back seat and drove with them the short distance, and not only that -- he got out and went through the check points with them, all the way inside. She didn't ask what he was doing, leaving Daniel and O'Neill alone at his place, and neither of them volunteered a word to explain it. The two of them, instead, argued about something called blues music all the way to the corridor that branched to her quarters, and away from Teal'c's. She didn't really listen. She was remembering O'Neill's smile, which had expressed an emotion that was about as far from happiness as one could get.

^^^^

Vala followed through on her shot and straightened, watching the candy-colored balls bounce lazily, as if they couldn't decide quite what to do. This bar was expensive, immaculate, and very quiet, so unlike the rowdy dives of the sector where she'd stolen the ship that had brought her within reach of the Tau'ri homeworld. The city that surrounded this elegant bar was the region's capital, Daniel had told her, and the nightlife she'd seen so far here was almost as stolid and quiet as the hearing rooms and corridors where she and her reluctant companion had spent the day. But the singing undercurrent that meant power and wealth was here too, as it had been in those white, high-ceilinged halls. She had an unerring instinct for such things.

She leaned on her stick, cocking one hip, watching the table. The physics had been fiendish, but she felt it would all work out. Her patience was rewarded as the eleven ball, nudged by the seven, eased toward the corner pocket, hesitated, teetered, and fell. She smiled at General O'Neill, who, from his seat in the corner, raised his small short glass in salute and smiled at her. Daniel, of course, was glaring.

She picked up the chalk and skewered the end of her cue, looking for angles on the seven. The three would actually be her best bet.

"Shit," Daniel said, actually, positively annoyed, not just faux annoyed. Vala enjoyed his discomfiture. She bent over the table again, lining up for the seven. Two banks, but she could just do it, if Daniel's twelve cooperated....

"It's really quite unfair that I taught you this game less than a month ago and yet you are beating the pants off me in it," Daniel whined.

"You forget, darling, that I've played a similar game before. You think ... your people ... are the only ones to develop something like pool?"

Teal'c would not, Vala thought, have chanced the necessity of using the corner of the cushion. He would stick to shots using the flat and predictable edgeline of the table, but once again, her risk here paid off. The three fell into the side pocket. Now the seven and the eight were all that stood between her and victory.

Daniel was still complaining. "No one's run the table on me like this since the last time Teal'c came out with the old team, back in the Springs."

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," the general said, easily and without heat, seeming to enjoy Daniel's whining even more than Vala was.

Vala said absently, "Now you have someone else to complain about, hm?"

She sank the seven with an easy corner shot, bouncing the cue back to the middle of the table. The eight was next, one last easy bank, and thus would she leave four of Daniel's evens on the felt. Not bad. Not as good as Teal'c, the master, but not bad. And now that she'd won, they'd have another round of drinks, and then she'd get to play the general. A tingle ran up her spine at the thought. This was his bar, his city. She'd tried her best to be ... appropriate ... here. Despite what people at the SGC headquarters seemed to think, the last thing she wanted to do was to create a liability for the offworld explorers who kept the gate, with their Washington overlords. It was just that politics was so ... indirect. And she had so much, yet, to learn. Since it seemed she'd be staying here with the Tau'ri for a while.

She wondered how good O'Neill was at eight-ball, and with the wondering, glanced up and met his steady dark gaze over the rim of his little glass. What had he ordered? Something called Jameson's. His look made something crackle to life in her belly. Oh, probably ... he was very good. Very good indeed. Yes, Vala had learned many years ago to recognize power wherever she saw it.

Three games and a bit more whiskey later, Daniel, she decided, was definitely angry about something and hiding it. He couldn't possibly, she thought, be upset with her simply for winning her games with him and then losing to O'Neill. Twice. It couldn't be something so petty as a game.

No, he was angry about something else entirely. She just didn't know what. Her presence? Was that enough to explain it? Perhaps.

Their time at the bar came to a close, and Daniel continued to whine. He complained about the weather and the traffic, from his spot in the front seat of Jack's comfortable vehicle. He complained about Jack not having a truck anymore, which Vala couldn't really follow, but apparently Daniel found it very out of character for his old friend.

And when they arrived back at the general's lodgings, Daniel complained about the temperature and the floor plan, until the general clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Clearly you need your beauty sleep more than the rest of us, princess. You can have my bed, and I'll take the couch."

"And Vala the guest room," Daniel said, blankly, disarmed and apparently quite surprised by the general's plan.

"Of course. Unless you need to be right in there and cozy with her because of those bracelets," and Vala was sure that was a humorous look in her direction. No question. More than quiet flirting, less than a leer. But definitely there.

Daniel frowned. "No. No, absolutely not. Those effects have worn off quite a bit. I'll just... Look, I can take the sofa."

And with a raised eyebrow at her, which she could in no way translate, O'Neill had stopped arguing by the effective technique of vanishing down the hall and behind a closed door.

So Vala had taken herself to the guest room that Daniel showed her, without further ado. Daniel, arrogant wily opponent that he was, in her experience, did not whine. She wished she had enough information to navigate what was behind his behavior. She hadn't had enough experience of Earth to fully understand the hearings with the Washington lawmakers, and, on a much more personal level, she didn't have enough with Daniel either. She could identify the existence of undercurrents, but finding her way through them was impossible. For now. She conceded defeat by ignorance, as untroubled by this as she'd been by losing to O'Neill at pool. She would bide her time, and keep her eyes open. Vala pulled the covers up in her cold wide bed, and fell asleep.

^^^^

Daniel was never sure why he called Jack immediately after the debacle with the supergate, when he had stumbled back to his office before going home to get some rest. True, he called Jack all the time, regardless, good times and bad, but this time he found Jack's responses to be almost too sympathetic. His obvious concern made Daniel irritable instead of comforted.

"I kinda liked her," Jack said, mournfully. "She had spunk."

Daniel, stung, bit off the terse critique of Vala he was tempted to deliver, because after all, he'd called Jack to wail about her sacrifice, to rail at the cursed bad luck of the situation.

Hadn't he?

^^^^

When the rings set them down in safety on their own ship, Daniel vowed, all over again, as Vala collapsed against his shoulder, to remember to think, to care, and to not be a dickhead to this woman, ever again.

He tightened his hold around her waist, and the stiff blue brocade that Adria's minions had dressed her in crinkled under his hands. She leaned on him, then got her feet under her with a deep breath Daniel could feel. She straightened, getting her weight centered with an effort, and smoothed her hair out of her eyes. Her face was a controlled frozen mask, but her mouth turned down at the corners and she was very pale.

The worst had happened. To her. And the specifics of what he meant as "the worst" had horrible, familiar echoes that Daniel refused to parse or to pursue. And furthermore, the worst, in general, was erupting far and wide, to lots of people, Daniel noted vaguely. All around them, and with great enthusiasm. _Fuck,_ he thought. _Once more, with feeling._

How much more of this were they all expected to take, anyway?

^^^^^

It was Daniel who was lingering, still standing there by her too-firm cot. She could tell because of the way he fidgeted, and the distinctive pattern of how he shifted his feet. Also she'd heard the voices of Teal'c, and Sam, and Cameron, come and go around the two of them.

It was a quiet little dual oasis now, in her corner of the infirmary.

"I owe you an apology," Daniel said.

She considered continuing to pretend to be asleep, but curiosity won. She didn't open her eyes, though.

"For what, darling?"

"For not listening to you. About the supergate. Before you ended up in the Ori galaxy. I'm sorry. Very sorry."

"Oh, that."

"Yes. That. So I'm sorry, though it's really of no use for me to say it, because of course it was a long time ago now, and I realize that an apology, however warranted, doesn't change a thing that's happened. But I am. Sorry. And also, I need to say, thank you. For what you've done for us and for Earth, when you had no reason at all to do it. No reason at all."

Sheer astonishment forced her eyes open. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking into the distance, and smiling ruefully to himself on some impulse she couldn't trace.

"Well, thank you for saying so."

He met her eyes, then, and he reached out and squeezed her arm. The one that wasn't currently absorbing a new pint of blood. And she thought he'd leave then, but when he let go of her, instead of leaving he looked around and pulled up a chair and sat down. He folded his arms and leaned his head back. He sighed, long and gusty, and closed his eyes.

So she closed her eyes again, too, for a while. She hurt all over. The needle in her arm hurt, her head hurt, and there was an ache in her guts that even the miraculous powers of the Orici could not take away.

After a while, Daniel stirred and said, "Do you need anything? Ice, or a drink, or anything?"

"No," Vala said, "just... maybe they could dim the lights a little."

"Good idea." He got up and intercepted a nurse, and soon the overheads went out in her corner of the big bare room. He sat down again in his chair.

"If you want to lie down...." she ventured. He looked so uncomfortable, sprawled there. And he had to be exhausted, too.

"Maybe that would be...." Daniel didn't even take off his boots, or his glasses, but heaved himself to his feet, glanced around, and lay down on the bed next to hers, right on top of the drab military-colored covers, and was out like a light.

Vala watched him for a long time. The angle of his head pulled his glasses crooked. Finally she scrunched down, almost hiding her face under the blankets, smushing her head into the pillows. She turned to her side, still watching him. She pressed both hands to her belly, which was awkward with the needle in her arm. And if she relaxed enough to finally let the slow silent tears of loss and pain and fury slide down her cheeks, well. Nobody saw them. And that was for the best, now, wasn't it.

^^^^^

She had expected, somehow, that Daniel's apology would be his final word on the subject.

But he treated her differently. He listened to her. He laughed at her jokes, he let her flirt with him.

He even hugged her.

Mitchell had made them all learn basketball, and that was where she saw the change in Daniel toward her the most clearly, when they were on Earth. Daniel body checked her, blocked her, grabbed the ball from her, played what Mitchell cheerfully called "grab-ass" with her, with no hesitation and with a joking, loose humor that she wouldn't have previously believed of him.

She didn't know what to make of it; if something had happened while she was gone, or if he really had learned to appreciate her only because she'd sacrificed something for the Tau'ri. But whatever his motivations, it made her happy.

But she could never lure him into bed. It wasn't, however, for lack of trying.

^^^^^

All the members of SG-1 rose, shuffling their briefing folders, as Landry stood and turned on his heel. Daniel noted that the general always looked as if he was storming out, even when he wasn't.

"Oh, and Ms. Mal Doran," he began, turning halfway back. "Your petition?"

"Yes? Sir?"

"Granted." He waited a beat, his narrowed eyes tracking from Sam to Mitchell to Daniel, then back to Vala. Teal'c was waiting by his chair, standing with hands folded behind him, looking immovable.

"Thank you! Very much," Vala exclaimed, and the energy it took for her to remain still, without bouncing, meant she might as well have bounced. Landry smiled, an automatic punctuation mark with no emotion behind it, and turned away again and strode to his office.

"Did you hear that?" Vala said, when the door had closed behind him. She turned to Sam and leaned over her chair and hugged her hard around the neck. "Now we can move on the search in earnest!"

"Ah," Daniel began, tapping his pen on the table. Sam didn't let her go, and so Vala scrambled to extricate herself from the hug enough to turn and look at Daniel. Sam was beaming at her, arms still around her waist. Mitchell was just standing there, waiting, arms folded, trying and failing to not smile.

"It's all arranged already," Daniel said.

"What? What?" Vala said.

"Come on and get changed," Sam said, releasing her. "Come and take a look at your new place."

^^^^^

It was astonishing, really, how they'd all made it happen behind her back. She silently and mentally held this to her chest, like a gift, like a talisman -- that, and the fact of how they had helped her, made light work of all the jobs involved with leasing a place and moving her into it -- so many friendly hands. It was simply amazing. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had so much help, so much support. So many real friends. She probably couldn't remember because she had never had it before at all.

She trailed her hand across the back of the white jacquard sofa, and looked around. Her own apartment, in a building not too far from Daniel's. She had a home, and a little car, parked in the garage that made up the first three floors of the building, and a complete Tau'ri identity, with licenses and papers and credit cards -- the works, as Cameron would say. It was too much.

Sam was in her kitchen even now, still helping, loading the last of the dinner party dishes into the dishwasher, and killing the last of the wine as she did.

"I can't quite believe it," Vala said to the silence of the living area.

"Believe it," Sam said. "Landry was the hardest sell. If he's on board, you can count on it. It's handled."

"I suppose so," Vala said. She got up and walked over to the glass doors that led to her balcony, and stared out at the night.

Sam came up beside her and put her arm around Vala's shoulders. "Do you want me to sleep over? Or would that be weird?"

Vala looked into her eyes, and smiled. "I think I'll be fine. Thank you, though." She turned to her friend and hugged her tightly.

"I hope you feel at home here, finally," Sam said, leaning back from the long hug. "We want you to."

"I know," Vala said, quiet and emphatic. "And I do."

Sam squeezed her arms, and turned away. "I'll head out, then. Call me if you get freaked out in the night or something. Vertigo at being above ground."

"Really. I'll be fine." Vala hugged herself and watched Sam gather up her purse and jacket and head for the door.

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Sam."

She turned back to the view through the balcony doors. The night was sparkling and silent. She was alone. In her own place. On her new planet. She had no words. She bit her lip and watched the sky for a long time.

^^^^^

Vala was on a beeline for Daniel's office, the printout of the transmission the Tok'ra had intercepted clutched in her fist, the latest propaganda about Adria, tailored to a local system, and she knew this language fairly well but Daniel knew it better. She hung on her heel in the doorway, her excited demand dying on her lips, because he was on the phone.

And she stayed there, instead of turning away and coming back later, because she'd never seen that expression on his face before and it was so captivating and so arresting that she had to stop and enjoy it, before it went away. To be, no doubt, replaced by his usual skeptical frown.

He was smiling, as he talked, smiling inwardly. He was looking at his own hand, toying with a pen, as he spoke, low and rapidly, into the phone.

And then he paused to listen, and the intent wonder and delight with which he was concentrating on the words of whoever was on the phone was... beautiful. She'd never seen such an expression on his face.

She watched, as he played with his pen, and talked, and listened.

And then he said, "Bye" -- she saw his lips form the word, and he hung up the phone and stared at it, and she watched it all shut down, fade away, all that incandescent beauty, and she wanted to reach out, to say, "but," to ask.... but then he turned toward her and said, "What?" and the moment was over.

^^^^^

Vala haunted Daniel's office, after Adria found them and took him from them. She'd go in there at the end of the workday, or after a mission. After she'd showered and changed into street clothes.

His lab had two doors, and they always stood open. Always, despite the priceless artifacts, despite the computer that was never shut down, just left on log-off, the silly screensaver of dancing pharaohs always moving, never powered down into blackness. The Tau'ri had a strange sense of humor, she'd thought, when she first saw those little cartoonish pictures. But Teal'c had explained to her that most Tau'ri, including the engineers who had created that screensaver program, had no idea about who the Goa'uld really were, or indeed that they even existed.

In Daniel's absence, she would go in there and just sit. Very quietly. Hardly moving.

When she sat in there, she couldn't even fiddle with Daniel's artifacts; all the fun went out of that when he wasn't there to tut-tut her. And she never sat in Daniel's chair. She sat on a stool by the big work-table, illuminated by the light from the fish tank and the indirect wavering glow of dancing pharaohs, and she'd watch the little silly water creatures flit in the weirdly blue water. She'd stay there until the words and the motions of the day slid away just a little, until there was a tentative sort of peace in the middle of the patch in her mind that was ordinarily brimful of regret and longing. And then she'd sigh, pick up her purse, and go up to the surface and drive herself home.

One evening when she went in there and slid onto her stool, it took her a few minutes to notice that someone else was already present. She controlled her start of surprise with great effort.

The someone leaned back, in Daniel's chair -- Daniel's chair! -- and the light spilling in from the hall touched the silver in his hair as he moved, and she knew him.

"My, but you can sit very still," Vala observed, when she had her heart under enough control that she could keep her voice steady.

"Years of practice," came the answer, a dry rasp. She watched as O'Neill leaned forward again, into the pool of shadow that floated between the light from the hall and the softer light from the fishtank.

"I heard you were coming to inspect the troops, but I thought that would be tomorrow."

"You heard right," O'Neill said.

"I wonder," Vala said, marveling at her daring, but mostly understanding that she either wanted to drive him out of here or make him invite her somewhere -- either way, she could not sit here silently in Daniel's office with this man, who would destroy whatever peace she found here, by his very presence, "if you're here for the same reason I am."

"I doubt it," O'Neill said, a voice in the dark.

"So you don't miss him and you don't want to just sit here quietly and soak up a bit of whatever he might have incorporeally left hanging about?"

No answer. She bit her lip. She'd hoped a direct attack like that would make O'Neill either walk out or tell her to go, but he said nothing.

She turned, finally, to find her purse and get up and go herself, annoyed that because of the general, today she couldn't do this little thing, this little trivial thing, this ritual, that somehow had become so important to her. He had spoiled it. So she would leave, conceding the field to O'Neill, who was here for his own obscure reasons. She stood, intending to leave without another word.

"You all left him behind," O'Neill said.

_Oho,_ Vala thought, the outlines coming clear, the motivations. Finally, some insight into this man.

"Yes," she said, biting off the word. Because they had.

She hooked the strap of her purse on the bone of her shoulder. She turned for the door, but before she'd taken three steps O'Neill was at her elbow, silently, without any warning at all. He took her elbow and steered her out the door and up the corridor to the elevators.

She glanced at him, one quick sideways flick of her eyes. He was in street clothes, too.

He let go of her elbow in the elevator, but he shadowed her all the way out, and when he had paced her down the tunnel and when she had unlocked her little car, he slid into the passenger seat.

They were all the way down the swooping road, on the flats again, heading for downtown, before he said anything more.

"I need to hear your reasons for leaving him behind like that."

Vala kept her eyes on the road. "You've read the file. Probably watched the debriefing tapes."

"Indulge me."

Vala sighed. Somehow she couldn't come up with a flippant answer, a way to turn aside this man's intensity and deflect his judgment of her. In that, he reminded her of Teal'c. No matter what you said to Teal'c, he would do exactly as he'd purposed to do in the first place.

"Adria was attacking us. He was holding her off. He said he'd be right behind us. Sam went through the gate first, and then Cameron pulled me through."

"Daniel told you all to go."

"You know all this," she said, exasperated, glancing at him, but she went on, as he'd insisted. "He did. We knew by that time that he'd absorbed something of Merlin's personality, Merlin's powers. He was actually holding her off, creating a kind of shield against her attack, which as you know, should be impossible."

"He told you to go, and all of you did what he said."

"Is that so hard to believe?"

O'Neill didn't answer. He let her drive and asked no more questions.

She pondered taking him somewhere anonymous, just leaving him on a sidewalk in front of a bar or a restaurant. Pondered offering to drop him at a hotel, or asking him where he wanted to go or even where he thought she was taking him. But she kept coming back to the fact that he'd been sitting there, in the dark, in Daniel's office. Just as she had been.

She took him home.

She could see him assessing her place, looking around, deducing the floor plan, evaluating the door and the lock. She turned the deadbolt key and put the entire set on the coffee table in plain sight instead of holding on to the ring to take into the bedroom, which was her normal habit.

She kicked off her shoes and went to the kitchen and poured two glasses of wine, without asking. She brought him one, there where he was standing, poised between the seating area and the door, and sank onto her white sofa and looked toward the blank face of the television screen. Then she sighed and drew up her knees and turned, pressing her back into the corner of the cushions, so that she faced the balcony doors.

O'Neill walked over to them and slid the latch and opened them wide, letting in the chilly breeze. He stood there with his back to her, and sipped the wine she'd given him, and looked at the night. Street sounds drifted up, and the chatter of insects.

"Why'd you leave him?" he repeated, still not looking at her.

This was getting annoying. Her voice was sharp when she replied. "You ask me that again? Or are you asking yourself?"

He turned, sharply, eyes narrowed, and opened his mouth, but she found she was angry enough at his judgmental pose to keep talking without letting him speak. "You think I haven't read the reports, read the history of your precious team? This is one in a long string of reckless things Daniel has done, and you know it. How dare you blame us or accuse us? And how dare you accuse me in particular? I notice you're not having this conversation with Sam, or with Mitchell. I know you have too much sense to try to have it with Teal'c."

"No, it's definitely you I'm having it with."

"Because you thought I'd be more easily intimidated? Silly man."

His rare smile wanted to appear, wanted to stretch a corner of his mouth. She saw it, and knew that she'd read him right, that she'd been right to bring him here. She took a big swallow of wine and set her glass aside. She got up and went to him. Barefoot, she was much shorter than he.

His expression was anything but inviting, but she went right up to him and put her arms around him and put her head on his shoulder.

Vala said, "We'll find him. I know he's still alive. He's been in much tighter spots than this."

He sighed, and she smiled even as tears started in her eyes, because his arm came around her waist.

O'Neill said softly, "You saying that for my benefit, or for yours?"

"For both, of course," Vala said, her head tucked against the swell of his shoulder, his neck almost, almost, under her lips. She let the tears fall. It had been a long time since she'd felt like crying on anyone's shoulder.

He didn't protest at all when, after a while, she stepped back and turned and took his hand and led him down the hall.

^^^^^

Unlike most men of her acquaintance, O'Neill didn't fall asleep immediately after sex. He petted her bare back, slow sweeps of his warm soft palm along her spine, and she could hear him thinking. She let herself drift, smelling her own hair conditioner and his sweat and the remnants of their lovemaking. He was warm. It had been much too long since someone had been in her bed, since she'd felt that warmth, that friendly living contact. That made her think of Tomin and the days when they were first together, made her remember his eagerness and his directness, and his affection, which was given too soon and too easily. She had to pick and choose carefully among the memories, though, to find the happy ones, and in the end it became too much work. Better to push memories away entirely, and open her eyes and stay in the moment. This man, this bed. This now.

Jack was warm under her arm and against her belly. She bent a knee, nudging, and he bent his own and let her slide her leg beneath his.

Jack asked, "Are you going to tell him we did this, when we get him back?"

"Whyever would I do that?"

"I don't know; competition? To see his reaction? Or did you already have the 'monogamy, not monogamy' talk?"

She smiled, a calculating curl of lips that had nothing to do with happiness. She was amazed. The great General O'Neill, chess player and strategist extraordinaire, had judged so wrongly. It made her all the more admiring of Daniel. She lifted her head from the cushion of his chest and looked O'Neill in the eye. Her triumphant smile turned teasing.

"Oh, Jack. Daniel and I aren't sleeping together. And what a silly euphemism that is anyway; nothing to do with sleeping. Daniel and I have never done this." She trailed her hand along his chest and pressed in with her hips, gentle reminder.

He shook his head, once, and put his hand to her head, urged her to set it back on his chest.

"Good to know," he said.

"I can't believe you assumed that we had."

"Must be losing my touch."

"Well, you have been under a lot of stress lately."

He grunted, half amusement and half acknowledgement of that truth. It was only half joking, the way she said it.

They lay there for a while, and after a time they made love once more, as long and slow as the first time had been urgent and desperate, but they didn't look at each other. Well, Vala kept her eyes closed, anyway, and there was an inwardness, a distance, to Jack that she could feel, even as she brought him up to hard with her mouth, even as he slid inside her again. But the distance didn't upset her.

He made her come, skillfully, repeatedly, creatively, and after all that she would have roused herself, paid him her full attention, used her hands, used her mouth again, but no -- what he wanted instead was so simple, so easy. She drifted, intoxicated, just feeling him against her and inside her, and he moaned into her mouth when he climaxed, moaned as if in pain, and when he was done she wrapped him tight in arms and legs and fell asleep against him, hard and fast, straight down into the soft blessed dark.

When she woke, the morning bright in the sky, she was alone. Only his wineglass, still half full on the bedside table, the used, rubbed feeling between her legs, and the one little red mark on her neck, proved she hadn't dreamt the entire thing.

^^^^^

Vala and Jack sat in the Odyssey's sickbay, turn and turn about, as Daniel, restored to his normal, if a bit harrowed, good looks, slept. And slept. And slept.

They didn't talk much, and they didn't look at each other. But when Jack took a turn piloting, to give Sam a break, Vala slept and let Cam relieve her. But when she arrived again in the sick bay, and found Jack already sitting there, at Daniel's side, he didn't leave. When they sat with him, it was together.

^^^^^

When the knock came at Vala's door, sometime between the frozen egg rolls and the stirring of the spaghetti sauce, Jack and Vala both froze. Jack cleared his throat and took the wooden spoon out of her hand.

"You told me Carter and Mitchell had infirmary duty today."

"They did," Vala said, eyes wide.

"And I was there when Lam was insisting on another 48 hours of observation."

"She did!"

Jack bopped her over the head with the handle of the spoon. "Aren't you going to answer it?"

"You know it's him."

"Of course it's him. Who else would it be?"

"Help?"

"I never should have let you talk me into coming over. I should have camped out in the infirmary where I belong."

Vala bit her lip and tapped the spoon against her thigh. "This could all turn out for the best, you know."

Jack raised an eyebrow. She turned on her heel and answered the door. Jack trailed behind her, leaning in the dining room archway, arms folded. The first thirty seconds of Daniel's reaction to finding them here together would tell him everything he needed to know about whether Vala was right.

The door was opening. Daniel stepped in, and he closed his eyes as he pulled Vala close. She murmured his name and hugged him back -- not politely, not in a friendly fashion. She plastered her body against his and hugged him hard. Daniel hugged her back, seeming to sag a little. Then Daniel opened his eyes and saw Jack. His start was pronounced enough to make Vala lean back and look up at him. Jack watched his eyes track past Jack to the table, the half-full wine glasses, the burning tapers, the lace tablecloth.

"I'm interrupting something," Daniel said, and his voice was polished glass. He dropped his arms from around Vala's shoulders, but his eyes stayed locked to Jack's.

Now or never. Jack strode forward and took hold of Daniel's wrist before he could turn for the door.

"Don't go," Jack said, low and urgent. "Please."

Daniel paused, but he wanted to pull away. Vala was jammed between the two of them and the door. She didn't look at Jack; her gaze strained toward Daniel, her neck extended like a swan's. "Why?" Daniel bit off the question.

"Because you're not interrupting anything and we want you here."

"We?"

"Is that a problem?"

"I think maybe it is, Jack."

"Come in. Sit. Have a glass of wine." And Jack kept hold of his wrist, and just looked at him, looked at him with his heart in his eyes, just like always, just like he still knew that everything about them was as solid as ever. Because it was. And if Daniel didn't know it yet -- well. He would. Soon enough. He was grateful that Vala had just stood there and let him make the plea.

Daniel narrowed his eyes, but he searched Jack's face. Vala watched. And Daniel made his decision. Daniel quit pulling back. He came into the apartment all in a rush, and turned and closed the door himself, hard, but not quite slamming it. He tugged off his jacket and threw it on the sofa, glancing around as if he'd never been here before, when Jack knew he had, many times. Jack put a hand on his back to guide him into the kitchen. When Daniel stiffened at his touch, Jack raised his eyebrows at Vala and handed him off to her.

She chattered all the way to the cupboard where she kept the wine. "I've got merlot, which is what we're drinking, or some of that champagne Sam likes, or there's some white. Hmm. Not sure what kind of white it is. Can you read this?"

"Whatever's open is fine," Daniel said, beside her there, his voice tight, giving up nothing.

Jack busied himself finding another napkin and another water glass and another plate from the sideboard in the little dining room. All Vala's things were new and too perfect, like things that newlyweds received as shower gifts in the Kennedy administration. When he'd set a third plate and folded the napkin, he joined the others in the kitchen, braving the tight fit and the tense atmosphere, to snag silverware. Daniel was just standing there, leaning hips against the counter, watching Vala pour his wine. Jack glanced at them both, collected his silverware and went back to the dining room.

"Oh, that's symbolic," Daniel called after him. "Laying a plate for the unwelcome guest at the feast."

"Not a guest, and not unwelcome," Vala said crisply. "You know that."

Jack, having arranged the last place setting, flipped on the light switch in the dining room, adjusted its dimmer, and leaned his shoulder in the kitchen doorway.

"Dinner in five," he said. "Now, where's my wineglass?"

Somehow, Jack thought, purely on the strength of that look he'd given Daniel at the front door, Daniel forced himself to sit down and consume the meal with them. It was simple and quick -- just pasta with red sauce and a salad out of a bag, but he and Vala had amused themselves with the candles and the table setting, intending to make it a small celebration of Daniel's recovery.

She explained that to Daniel during the meal, and though he glared at her, he seemed to take it in and actually ponder it. Which Jack thought was a good sign.

After dinner, Daniel pushed his plate back and drained his wine. He set the goblet on the table and pinned Jack with his gaze. "You want to talk about this in front of Vala?"

"Whatever you mean by 'this', yes."

Daniel shook his head, with an incredulous expression. Jack wondered how much hurt it was hiding. He braced himself.

Daniel said, "We never promised monogamy. I know we never needed that, not really. But this is crossing a line, Jack."

Vala's eyebrows went up, and so did her voice, above its normal tone. "Crossing a line? That's ridiculous. You are both extremely important to me, as I hope you both have figured out by now, and there is nothing untoward about that whatsoever."

Daniel glanced at her and his neck and shoulders rippled with the effort of holding back whatever piece of his mind he was aching to give her. He was still talking to Jack. "She's on my team, Jack. Way to rub my nose in it."

Jack could see the shape, the outline, of the hurt Daniel was feeling. "You've got it all wrong, Daniel. You're a genius, but you've got this all wrong."

"Oh?"

"She's your friend, and on your team. Duh. And yes, goddammit, I went to her when you were missing. Sue me. I went to her, and it was the right thing to do. She's not another Kerry goddamned Johnson. Which you could very easily see if you weren't so goddamned afraid to look at what's right in front of you."

Vala said, or tried to say, "Ke--"

Jack put his hand toward her without looking, and said sharply, "Aht!"

Vala raised her eyebrows again, but she waited.

Jack said to Daniel, crisply yet kindly, "You like her, you want her, more than you want to admit. For god knows what reason, you let me in a long time ago. And you know how glad I am about that. But you're more afraid of loving her than you ever were of loving me. Am I the only one in the room who sees this?"

Vala had exhaled, sharp and surprised, like someone had punched her, in the middle of Jack's statement. Now she said, quiet and firm, in answer to Jack's question: "No."

Daniel had pursed his lips, but he hadn't gotten up to leave. He was tapping the heel of his knife against the tabletop, making a dull thudding sound, hard to listen to. He probably didn't even know he was doing it. He said, terse and intense, "So that's how it is, now. So you've got it all figured. Without any one informing me. It's gonna be her and me, huh, and then we add you in, when you come to town?"

Jack nodded, still calm. He pretended Daniel wasn't trying to throw anything in his face, pretended Daniel was being absolutely serious. "Or when you two come to my town."

Daniel winced.

Jack tried for kind. "Come on, Daniel. It could be worse. It fact, it has been worse."

Vala couldn't take any more. "All right," she burst out, "I'm entirely not comfortable with being some kind of band-aid here for your issues, both of you. You two have a past I know nothing about, but by the seven hells of Malabar, there's nothing wrong with this. With Jack coming to me, with Jack being with you, which I might add took me longer than you'd expect to figure out was happening. You're very careful." Daniel rolled his eyes. Vala went on, "You could have been with me as well, long since, Daniel, and as you know, the fact that that has not happened, yet, is not for lack of me trying. So hello, Daniel! Nothing bad is going to crawl out from under the bed because of this. Climb down off your high horse."

Daniel looked astonished. "You never get to complain to me again about missing the meaning of a cultural reference."

"Whatever," Vala said. She got up and went over to him and put her hands on his shoulders, and bent to press the side of her face to his. She closed her eyes. "You silly, silly man."

Jack smiled. It was just what she'd proclaimed him to be, once upon a time. He met Daniel's eyes. Daniel looked shocked, but he wasn't pulling away.

Vala added, softly, "We're glad you're back. We missed you. We love you."

Jack smiled with one corner of his mouth. "Took the words right out of my mouth," he said.

Vala pressed a kiss to Daniel's cheek and he closed his eyes. She stood up straight. "Can we please go to bed now? Please?"

Daniel, just as Jack had, once, let himself be pulled to his feet, and let himself be led.

In the bedroom, Vala turned to Daniel and pressed herself to him. When she raised her face to his, he kissed her, his body language getting less grudging by the second.

Jack, still smiling a Mona Lisa smile, came up behind her and reached between them to undo the belt of her jeans.

"So, Jack," Vala said, against Daniel's mouth. "We're going to give him the full treatment, yes?"

"Roger wilco," Jack said.

"What?" Vala said, taken completely aback, and Daniel burst out laughing.

_Oh yeah,_ Jack thought. _We've got you now, sunshine._

^^^^^^

It was a surrender. Maybe he was just tired. Or maybe he had, as usual, let his trust in Jack cloud his judgment. And without his noticing, his trust in Jack had grown and grown and spread, like an ink stain, into his personal life even beyond their unquestioned love affair, which had blown hot and cold, survived transfers and wars and alien incursions, sometimes honored more in the breach than the observance, and yet sometimes closer and more essential to Daniel, down the years, than the air he breathed.

He'd always trusted Jack. He trusted him now.

But, _What the fuck,_ he couldn't help thinking.

He glanced back at Jack, who was walking calmly enough behind him down Vala's hallway to her bedroom. He glanced at his own wrist, captured in Vala's slim hand, where it rode suspended between the two of them, as she pulled him and he let her. He could easily pull away and turn for the door. No one would stop him.

But he didn't. He sighed and let his glance drift up her arm, to rest on the tight curves of her ass, under its revealing layer of stretchy tight denim. It would be warm, under his hands. He closed his eyes, and let her lead.

She was always warm. She was warm when they played basketball, and he'd known this ever since he'd given in and let himself touch, let himself go with the game, slapping and pushing her like he did so easily with the other two. She was warm when he hugged her, warm like Sam but not quite as soft -- and shorter, and more wiry.

Their first and only kiss had been warm, too -- years ago on the Prometheus bridge. He hadn't known what hit him, and she, apparently, hadn't either. Because she'd let that encounter change her life, hadn't she -- had followed him back against all reason and good sense to enlist his help in her mercenary scheme. But together, since then, they'd been on a quest much more terrible than any treasure hunt.

Her hand had been cold and bony, through the bars of the cell on the planet where her former slaves had almost put her to death, before she put her Goa'uld past to work in their service, fighting the Ori.

She had been dry and crumbling in his arms after the Ori had burned her to death. No matter that it was actually someone else's body at the time.

He opened his eyes, unwilling to relive that particular memory.

Jack knew. Jack had told him, straight up, that Daniel cared for her. Jack had seen more than Daniel had.

Big surprise there.

They arrived at the bed and Vala turned and slid her arms around his neck and pulled him close again. He sighed and buried his nose in her hair. He did care. He'd tried not to, goddammit, but he did.

And there was no reason -- not a misguided concern for Jack's possessiveness, not the uncertainty of the future -- no reason at all to try to resist it. All that had made him resist this, was his own fear.

He pulled his head up and found her mouth. She made a pleased murmur and kissed him back, holding him tighter.

Then, "So, Jack," Vala said, against Daniel's mouth. "We're going to give him the full treatment, yes?"

"Roger wilco," Jack said. Daniel realized Jack's hands had crept between him and Vala and were undoing her belt and the fly of her jeans.

"What?" Vala said, taken completely aback, and Daniel burst out laughing.

He felt Jack's lips against his neck, and Jack was smiling.

"Another obscure cultural reference to torment you with," Daniel said, and kissed her again. Sometimes, he had to admit, Jack was right. About actions speaking louder than words, and about words having a limited usefulness in certain situations.

Vala was squirming, her mouth and tongue doing interesting things with and to his, and Daniel kept his eyes closed and through a kind of full-body Braille he could tell that Jack was helping get her out of her clothes, while never letting her kiss with Daniel quite break up.

Daniel let his hands roam, finding the cool satiny wide strap of her bra, the lace-edged triangle of her underwear, and, still kissing, he vaguely remembered something Jack had quoted to him years ago when they were agreeing that women looked better in lingerie but men looked better naked.

Although, he thought distractedly, he would pay money to see Cameron Mitchell shirtless in old worn-out blue jeans.

But that was just a fantasy. This was real.

Some of his distracted state came from the fact that, having gotten Vala fairly undressed, Jack had pressed himself to Daniel's back and gone to work, blind and sure, on Daniel's shirt buttons. Jack's upper body was quite still, which told Daniel he had found an angle from which to watch Vala, but his fast-hardening dick was pressed against Daniel's ass. Trusting in Jack, once again, Daniel toed out of his wellworn loafers, letting the bodies bracketing his keep his balance for him.

Then Jack was pushing down his underwear along with his khakis. Very efficient. As soon as he'd stepped out of his pants, Vala lost no time in investigating his erection, and the combination of her hands pressing and tugging in front and Jack's now-naked penis insinuating itself vertically behind, made Daniel moan and clutch Vala tighter.

Vala was moving, then, backing up, panting and breaking the kiss, and with a toss of her long hair she was yanking down the covers to give them rose-strewn sheets to lie on, and tugging Daniel toward her. He felt Jack pull his shirt down his back and off his arms as he went.

Vala smiled at him, strangely tender, and pulled his glasses off and turned to put them on the far nightstand. Her underwear was lacy and beautiful -- dark blue satin the color of the midnight sky. It looked both sexy and comfortable, though women's underwear, in his experience, was so often one or the other but not both. Which probably meant, he thought, distracted again by Jack's hands on his shoulders, that it was very, very expensive.

He let his hand rest on the curve of her breast, right there where the bra pushed it up, irresistibly soft and kissable, and she paused, following his eyes. He bent and pressed his lips there, kissing soft and wide, letting his tongue worry the edge of the lace a little. Balanced on his knees, with Jack close behind him, he let his other hand find the matching spot on her left, let his thumb find the suddenly hard and prominent nipple. She groaned and he felt her hands in his hair.

He raised his head and smiled at her, and she had time to smile fleetingly back before Jack's hand pulled her in so that he could kiss her, over Daniel's stooping frame.

Then she was leading again, pulling him to the middle of the bed, stopping him with hands on his shoulders, before he could get off his hands and knees, and then she was turning away, and he could hear the slide and catch of a drawer, and it came over him, then, what they intended to do to him, how they intended to have him between them.

"God," he said, seeing it all about to unfold.

But then she was on her back under him, and taking him in her mouth, and Jack's fingers were cool and slick, and he could not have moved away or protested if his life depended on it.

^^^^^^

Daniel tasted marvelous -- peppery and warm, immensely lickable, and he had hardly any hair. His balls went tight and close to his body immediately, which meant, she hoped, that they had him on the edge of climax, and not thinking too hard, right away. She had a moment's regret that she was in a very poor position to watch as O'Neill stroked into him, but she comforted herself with the certainty that if this happened at all, it could definitely happen again, and she would have plenty of chances to see.

For the moment, she had warm satin between her legs to squirm against, and the warm, astonished noises Daniel was making to light a new fire there as well. She filled her mouth with him, and listened.

^^^^^^

Jack had expected to get hot, to get seriously, amazedly hot, having them both, Daniel and Vala, together, in bed, like this. What he hadn't expected was the clear and shining emotion of relief that he was feeling.

They had Daniel between them, and perhaps, even given what was ahead, out there in the world, they could keep him there, keep him close and safe and cherished, Vala here, him overseeing things in D.C. It would be a fight, sure, but what wasn't?

Daniel had needed someone, Jack realized, since Jack had left. Someone to brush up against, to spar with, to fight against, in a way that Cam couldn't and Teal'c wouldn't, and in a way that Sam, whose heart was given elsewhere, might never even see that Daniel needed.

Jack certainly hadn't expected to need Vala. But he found himself extremely glad she was here. "Here" here, and "in the bigger picture" here.

Daniel was tight and slick and hot and gorgeous, as always -- too much, too overwhelming, too good. Jack held on to Daniel's hips, and slid into him slowly, carefully, letting Daniel's reactions set their pace.

_God, I love you,_ was what Jack was thinking. What he said, choked and soft, was, "Danny...."

And Daniel clenched on him, and then released him and pushed back, and Jack moaned and went with it, fucking him so carefully and with so much love.

He let himself stop tracking things for a while, losing himself in Daniel's body, in the gorgeous warm embrace of it, in the slow rhythm of their friction, but he realized Daniel was taking over the pace, pushing ever harder, ever faster. Daniel's moans were getting urgent and short, like a plea. Jack changed his stance, pushing Daniel's knees wider, making, he knew from long experience, the long tendons in his inner thighs sing and protest, and Daniel said, "God, Jack," and set an even faster pace, wanting more, wanting harder, harder than Jack usually gave him.

Which Jack could do.

He opened his eyes, seeing Daniel's bent head, the glimpse of Vala and her shiny satin and creamy skin spread out upside down beyond, one of her legs bent at the knee, the other hanging off the bed. He could feel her nails as she gripped Daniel's hips. Occasionally she moaned.

And then, somehow, as they reached something Daniel probably didn't even know he wanted or needed, as Jack fucked him lovingly and hard, Daniel broke. He called, again, "God, Jack, oh my god, Vala--" and then his breath hitched and it wasn't so much moaning he was doing as sobbing. So Jack gave it to him even harder, really nailed it, bracing Daniel's hips, leaning back a little to balance himself, and then he shifted his grip and reached to hold Vala's wrist, then link his fingers with hers so that she wouldn't worry or pull away from Daniel's cock, despite the anguished sounds he was making.

Jack closed his eyes and thanked whatever gods there were, maybe the Nox, for all he knew, that they could do this for Daniel, let him let go like this.

Daniel's cries were torn, wild and sad, or so they might have seemed to Vala, but Jack once again wished the woman had mirrors in here, or that he could somehow lean to see, because Daniel clenched him hard, so hard, and pulsed around him and cried out, sharp and final, and Jack knew he was coming.

Vala groaned and her fingers tightened, and god, the woman was staying with him, swallowing it all, swallowing down Daniel's orgasm. She shivered and brought her thighs together.

Jack bit down hard, keeping his own climax at bay by sheer willpower, and his body knew what to do here with very little prompting -- knew when to hold that last final hard push into Daniel's body, knew when he found the angle to stay with, knew when to ease back, but not pull out.

Daniel was breathing hard, resting on his arms, ragged now, but no more sobs. Just hard messy breaths, getting his control back, returning to himself.

Vala was petting him, gently, exploring the curve of his ass. She moaned, an encouraging sound, and Jack's dick jumped without him having anything to say about it, because by the muffled quality of her voice he could tell she still had Daniel's dick in her mouth. It would be about half hard now -- Daniel deflated quickly after a massive extra-fine orgasm like that. He made a small sound, not quite a sound of discomfort, but a request, and Jack stayed put, keeping very still, while Vala purred. Her hands moved, her body shifted, and she was slowly, gently, pulling off Daniel and curling to one side. One of her hands rested on Jack's buttock.

Daniel collapsed, quite suddenly, down onto his chest, and Jack went with him, letting Daniel feel his weight. Daniel's back was slick with sweat, and so was his hair.

"Darling," Vala breathed, and she pulled herself around and kissed him. Daniel's eyes never opened, but he smiled. Jack smiled too, and pulled out, slowly. Daniel flopped one hand back to find his. He winced as he came free. Then Jack rested on his knees and just enjoyed the sight of Daniel, sprawled, relaxed, finished.

Vala extended a hand to him, but then let it fall onto Daniel's back.

"Please tell me you held off coming, general."

Jack had to smile. "Something I can do for you, ma'am?"

She smiled and leaned back, getting her legs tucked in front of her, and pulled the scrap of her satin underpants down and tossed them away. She was very wet already. She continued to pet Daniel, who had his eyes open and a contented, if a little stunned, expression on his face.

Jack leaned and rummaged found a condom in the nightstand drawer, and made short work of donning it.

"Oh my. I'm in luck tonight," Vala purred, on her back close beside Daniel, and Jack looked into her eyes as he leaned over her, and her gaze was happy and relieved, but what made him happiest was hearing Daniel's exhausted, genuine, rumble of quiet laughter.

^^^^^^

It was an unexpectedly beautiful thing to watch Jack leaning on his fists, holding himself so gently over Vala, unexpected how much pleasure Daniel took in watching them look at each other, watch each other, for their reactions as Jack slid into her body. If Daniel hadn't just come so fully and explosively, it probably would have made him hard again.

He knew, in a kind of distant, detached way, that they had been together in this bed already, while he was gone. But it was a strangely intimate and lovely thing to watch them continue to explore each other now.

He was vaguely proud that he was able to collect himself enough to give her at least two more orgasms with his mouth (but who's counting) after Jack had come inside her, and then rolled away to dispose of the condom and clean up. Jack's warm hands on his back and thighs while he had his eyes closed, reveling in Vala's taste and warmth, were just a kind of glorious bonus.

^^^^^^

It bemused Daniel, how easy it all was.

Getting together with Jack in the first place, lo these many years ago, had not been this easy, if memory served.

And he felt he should possibly have more issues with willingly, blissfully, embracing a relationship involving three people.

But his two lovers had taken the first risk -- marked the path for him, blazed the trail, and all he had to do was follow.

Jack went back to Washington the next day. Everything was the same, Daniel thought, and yet, everything was different.

He was cleared to resume missions. A few days later, another team night, another unobtrusive lingering at Vala's place when the rest of the team had gone home. Not so hard to hang back, to be the last to leave. And if Cameron smiled knowingly at him, well. Cameron always knew a lot more than he said.

After, snuggled comfortably in Vala's bed, her fingertips tracing delicious patterns on his shoulder, she said, "You know, don't you, that Jack came to me believing that you and I were already together. He was completely surprised when I told him we weren't."

"At that time," Daniel prompted.

"Yes."

"It was while I was gone, being a Prior."

Vala shivered. "He wanted comfort, I think. And a little of you. Whatever he could find of you, while you were gone."

Daniel sighed. "He and I have been together a long time. We hate to admit how much we need each other, but we really do."

"Yes," Vala said, and tightened her arms. She was another one, Daniel knew, who found it dangerous and appalling to admit the existence of needs.

After a minute, she said, "I don't want you to hold it against him, ever, even a little, that he came to me."

"I don't." He raised on an elbow to kiss her, seal and reassurance, and then lay back down. "I really don't."

"Good," she said, and he could feel the reservations relax right out of her. "I think it was obvious to him, and maybe to the team, I don't know, that you did care for me. But I, myself -- well, I wasn't going to rub your nose in it. Lovely idiom, that. "

Daniel smiled. She was so warm, curled against him like a cat. Smaller than Sha're, shorter and more wiry than Sarah, and no comparison to Jack. No comparison at all. Except in her bravery.

He tried, again, to stop his cataloguing thoughts, his racing need to understand, to put everything in its place. Like Jack, Vala had shown a decided tendency to erase all his careful categories. To surprise him, over and over. All he found to say was, "Jack knows me awfully well, after all this time."

Vala chuckled, a sexy dark sound. "Awfully is, in fact, the right word, I think....."

Daniel smiled, and kissed her hair, and once again, they slipped into sleep together. He'd call Jack in the morning, he thought, as he drifted off. See when they could squeeze in a trip to the capital. In between having to save the galaxy, of course....

the end.


End file.
